The desire of the Jews to own Palestinian land, that is, the Zionist movement, It started with the forced immigration of the Russian Jews to Palestine against the anti-Semitism that emerged in Russia in the 1880s. and Judenstaat, published by Jewish journalist Theodor Herzl in 1896. Theodor founded the World Zionist Organization in 1897; Subsequently, powerful and wealthy Jews in America and Europe attempted to establish a Jewish state in Palestine by making initiatives with the great states. During World War I,
Zionism first made US President Wilson a partner in the cause of the United Kingdom and then the United Kingdom. The Balfour Declaration, which emerged as a result, was a turning point for Jewish ambitions in Palestine. In a letter to Lord Rothschild, the President of the Zionist Federation, Balfour, the British Minister of Foreign Affairs, announced in November 1917 that Britain had accepted the establishment of a Jewish state in Ottoman territory. France, Italy and the United States also supported this action the following year.
The British and French had promised some Arab leaders during the Great War that they would liberate them from Turkish persecution and gain their independence. However, after the war, with the San Remo conference in 1920, it was decided to establish a mandate administration in the Middle East lands taken from the Turks and the lands were divided between these two states. Lebanon and Syria fell to France, and Palestine detached from Iraq and Syria fell to the British. But managing the Middle East was not as easy as they thought !!! It was a matter of curiosity how much these ancient lands, which witnessed the foundation of many empires and the collapse of many empires, would accommodate the Western Europeans. At the same time, France and England were searching for their old power with candles. Especially the British were busy watching the sun disappear at the horizon, which they believed did not set on their empire after the Great War …….
If we look at the events specifically in Palestine, the dismissal of their desire for independence after the expulsion of the Turks from the region caused a complete disappointment for the Arabs here. This disappointment led to great opposition to the British authorities. The attitude of the Mandate state to create a Jewish Homeland in Palestine has transformed the dimension of opposition to an entirely different level and turned into hostility. Since the early days of the British occupation and mandate rule, the allowance of Jews to settle in Palestine suddenly changed the population balance in the region. While the proportion of Jews in Palestine was 7% in 1918, it increased to 12% in 1922 and up to 20% in 1932. Of course, only the population balance did not change. A big difference started to occur between the development levels of the two communities.
The Jews who migrated to the region were more educated than the Arabs. While Jews, most of whom settled in cities, could even receive university education, the education levels of Arabs, more than 85% of whom lived in rural areas, rarely exceeded primary school. In addition, the British offering the industrial enterprises and trade opportunities to the Jews further enlarged the pouches of the already wealthy Jews. Of course, these events caused tension between the Jewish and Arab community from the very beginning. Civilians in both communities took up arms and formed resistance organizations. Especially the Haganah organization, which was founded by Jews and spread throughout Palestine, was supported by the British. The conflicts between these organizations turned into conflict in a short time. The most important of these conflicts can be counted among the events in 1921, 1929 and 1933. When 134,540 Jews immigrated to Palestine between 1933 and 35, the Palestinian Arabs panicked. With the provocations of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, they first revolted.
The end of the matter came to mutual acts of terror. The British government, realizing that the wheel had burst and would not hold patches, decided that the mandate government would not work. He considered dividing Palestine between the two groups, but when both sides rejected the taksim models, the business got stuck. The turmoil between 1937 and 1939 and the deaths of more than 3,000 people showed how out of control the events were. The fact that Iraq gained independence in 1930 and Syria in 1936 had an effect on the growth of the events, even if on paper. Because the Arabs here were closely interested in the Palestinian issue. The fact that Jerusalem and its surroundings are sacred to all three books caused attention not only to the Arabs but also to the whole world. Britain, who could no longer handle the matter, presented a plan for the solution of the issue in 1939. Accordingly, a Palestinian state would be established within 10 years, in which it had a say in the administration of both nations. In addition, Jewish immigration would be restricted and the consent of Arabs would be obtained.
The Jews rejected this offer and turned against the British. While the Jews’ unity and speaking in one voice gave them an advantage, the Palestinian Arabs could not act together. While some viewed the plan positively, others swore. They were not aware of it, but the lack of reflexes to act together would cause their land to be pulled from under … .. As the situation was, the Second War of Cihan started. The war naturally dispersed Britain’s focus here. This put oil on the Jews’ bread. On top of that, Nazi Germany subjecting millions of innocent Jews to genocide greatly increased the sympathy for the Jews in the world public opinion. The US demanded that more than 100,000 Jews who fled Europe resettled in Palestine. The USA, which gradually made its presence felt in the Middle East through oil companies in the 1930s, was the biggest supporter of Zionism due to the power of the Jewish community in the country. Of course, after the deterioration of relations with the British, the strategic approach of Zionist thinking to the United States also led this country to focus on the Palestinian issue.
In 1942, the World Zionist Organization officially announced that it was trying to establish a Jewish state in Palestine at the conference it convened in the USA. While these statements were made in the new continent, Haganah, who played the role of the army of the Jews, secretly settled the immigrants in the country and started ethnic cleansing, despite the British ban. Although Britain was on the side of the victorious countries, it left World War II losing even more power. Unable to prevent the turmoil in Palestine, he declared martial law in 1946. Their aim was to free them from the Palestine they had established. When they couldn’t take it any longer, they took the ball off their feet and passed it to the United Nations.
Two separate opinions emerged from the committee formed by the UN to examine the situation. The first idea was to divide the Palestinian land between the two communities and establish two different states. In this bill, Jerusalem would have an international status. In the plan based on the sharing of the country, 56% of the Palestinian land was given to the Jews. Well, if we count all the immigration, the Jews were still 31% of the total population! As can be imagined, the division would have caused a great apocalypse …
The second idea was to preserve the territorial integrity of Palestine and establish a single federative state. Most of those on the committee adopted the first idea. While Britain abstained in the voting, the USA, Soviet Russia and France agreed to share. The reason for the Soviets’ game in this direction was to sabotage the British, who were the effective power in the Middle East. Because the Russians knew that this decision would cause trouble. The Arab World naturally did not accept the UN resolution, and vows of vengeance were made by removing the buried war axes. Although the USA changed its mind after the harsh reaction of the Arab countries, what happened had already happened … In these times when the atmosphere was tense and civil war broke out, the British did not even try to find a solution. Their only thought was to take the Turks from their hands and leave these lands that they could not even rule for 30 years. The British government announced on May 15, 1948,
that it would withdraw from Palestine completely. Awaiting the opportunity, the Jews immediately began to occupy their part in the UN division. They either slaughtered the Muslims in the region or migrated them. In the hours of May 14, the last night of the British mandate, to 15 May, the Jewish National Council in Tel Aviv declared that it established the State of Israel under the leadership of David Ben Gurion. Ten minutes later, US President Truman became the first country leader to recognize Israel. A few hours after the announcement, Jordan, Syria, Egypt, Lebanon and Iraq declared war on Israel and the first Arab-Israeli war started …
Before starting the war, Hanagah did not have enough equipment. However, the leaders of the Yishhuv had foreseen the possible war and went to arms without hesitation. Yishhuv agents before the water buffalo administration had even started; They secretly brought weapons purchased from America and France, despite the British blockading the coast. With this shipment that continued even during the war, the Jews; He owned aircraft, tanks, automatic rifles, cannons and various armored vehicles. At the same time, the Soviets publicly sold arms to Jews by establishing an airbridge over Czechoslovakia. In addition to what we have counted, they did not need to hide the ammunition production underground when the war started and they produced the bullets of the famous Sten rifles in these workshops. Combining all their forces, including terrorist organizations,
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the Jews would increase the number of soldiers from 30,000 when the war started, to 120,000 by the end of the war with a general mobilization. The Palestinian side was very weak. Although their population was much larger than the Jews, they could neither raise as many soldiers nor be organized, nor could they exist technologically. The Arab League countries, knowing that the Palestinian Arabs would lose the war just before the war started, decided to enter Palestine. While 5 states were sending about 40,000 men to the field at the beginning of the war, they would increase this number to 60,000 towards the end. If we look at the balance of power of the armies of these 5 countries to enter Palestine, Egypt and especially Jordanian troops stood out from the others in every respect. Of course, these countries relied heavily on themselves and their armies. Arab leaders even made assertive statements to the press saying that they would dump the Jews into the sea.
The apparent aim of this confident league is; It was to protect the rights of Palestinian Arabs and not allow a Jewish state in the region. However, none of them cared about the Muslims in Palestine. All of them were acting for their interests, trying to get a share from the region. The conflict and greed among the Arabs also pushed the Resistance organizations in Palestine to doubt and avoid cooperation. In short, the Arabs seemed to move away from unity. The war started with the entry of 5 Arab countries into Palestine. The work of the 30,000-strong Israeli army seemed difficult against its enemies with high firepower. Egypt advanced on two branches to the south. The aim was to bring down Tel Aviv. But progress was stalled at some point by the Jewish Brigades. This pause was humiliating for Egypt, which saw itself as the leader of the Arab countries.
The Iraqi and Syrian Forces, on the other hand, lost their attack power quickly, even though they were initially present. Lebanon, on the other hand, pulled its head out a little with a little force. Only Jordan performed successfully, entered the West Bank and captured East Jerusalem. If we look at the general; Israel, which should have been in a difficult situation, made a good defense, and the Arabs were far below expectations. On 11 June, the first ceasefire was declared with the intervention of the UN. At the end of the ceasefire, which nobody waved, the Jews increased their forces to 63,000, while the Arabs continued the war with about 40,000 soldiers. The second part of the war proceeded through Israel’s effort to expand its borders. Despite all the calls for peace and re-share offers, the war did not stop. While the Arabs were trying to annex their settlements to their lands and acquire more, Israel aimed to capture all of Palestine and remove the Muslims from the region.
They found it difficult to absorb the Arab population in the West Bank and spread south and north. They captured all of Galilee in the north. In the south, they attacked the Egyptians and took the entire Najaf Desert, even against the British. Upon the insistence of the UN countries and the successive defeats and incompetence of the Arabs in the war that continued until the beginning of 1949, Israel,
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He signed a ceasefire one by one with all the countries he defeated by winning a great victory. He explained that because he started a successful war, he threw aside the map drawn by the UN and added all the places he had captured to his territory. N When the war ended and the cloud of dust dissipated at the end of the war, an Israeli state emerged, holding almost three fourths of the Palestinian lands…. But the Israeli state was not satisfied with this. From those days until now, a handful of Palestinian Muslims continued to occupy step by step, inch by inch. And while doing this, it did not hesitate to expel hundreds of thousands of people from their homes or to point guns at innocent children …….